Construction, Estonia, Good for Business, Real Estate, Tourism

Hilton already has one hotel in Tallinn, Hilton Tallinn Park Hotel, which opened in June 2016.

The operator of the first Hampton by Hilton hotel in the Baltic states will be Apex Alliance Hotel Management, which is currently operating six different hotels in Latvia, Lithuania and Romania under the Hilton and Marriott brands. The company aims to grow into the largest and most recommended hotel operator in Central and Eastern Europe. To date, there are 15 cooperation agreements signed in total with nine new openings in the nearest future. 

At present a retail compound converted from a Soviet-era cinema lies on said plot belonging to GVP Invest Estonia, a holding of Mindaugas Bagdonavicius, minority shareholder of Maxima owner Vilniaus prekyba and former CEO of Maxima Grupe. As developer, GVP Invest Estonia OU is about to build a new six-floor hotel to replace the depreciated Eha Center, which currently houses a shop, a pharmacy and a liquor store.

"Various metrics show positive growth trend in hotel market in Estonia, even higher than in Riga or Vilnius. In addition, together with the owners, we carefully analyzed what type of hotel would suit best on a given location. We have reviewed the existing Tallinn hotels market and have come to a conclusion that there is a lack of internationally branded three star hotel category hotels in Tallinn, therefore Hampton by Hilton hotel would fill in that gap," Brigita Aleksandraviciute, development director at Apex Alliance Hotel Management, said.

As things stand, a schematic design has been completed by architect Tonis Tarbe. The Tallinn city government at the moment is in the process of issuing design conditions for the hotel.

At the end of last year, the city government refused to endorse the design provisions submitted by GVP Invest Estonia for a hotel building from five to eight stories high. Vladimir Svet, head of the city district of Central Tallinn, said at the time that the design put forward was too big considering local traffic and access routes.